The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]

[550-546 B.C.]

Stripped of its romantic features, Herodotus’ narrative of the rise of Cyrus is in fundamental harmony with the new document which we possess on the subject, in the shape of annals inscribed on a Babylonian tablet. According to Herodotus, Cyrus and the Persians revolted; Harpagus the Mede, who was in league with him, was despatched against him. A part of the Median army fought, but another part went over to Cyrus or fled. In a second battle Astyages was defeated and taken prisoner. Now the tablet tells us among other things: “and against Cyrus king of Anshan, … went and … Ishtuvegu, his army revolted against him and in hands took, to Cyrus they gave him.” Thereupon, it proceeds, Cyrus took Ecbatana and carried off rich booty to Anshan. This summary account of the Babylonian annalist by no means excludes the supposition that Cyrus had fought a previous battle against Astyages. Both accounts say that the treachery and faithlessness of the army procured Cyrus the victory. We might even harmonise the Babylonian document with Ctesias’ narrative that Cyrus was at first hard pressed and driven back as far as Pasargadæ, if there were not other grounds, quite apart from its fabulous embellishments, which render this account improbable.

The date of the overthrow of Astyages and the taking of Ecbatana is, according to the Babylonian tablet, the sixth year; and, as it is in the highest degree probable that the years in this memorial are those of the Babylonian king Nabunaid [Nabonidus] we must place these events in the year 550. Hitherto it has been supposed, following Herodotus, that the reign of Cyrus (559-529) was to be reckoned from the fall of the Median empire, and that accordingly the latter event was to be placed in 559. But now we see that Cyrus numbered his years from the time when he ascended the throne in Persia.[29] Whether the revolt against Astyages began when he ascended the throne, we do not know. We may very well believe Herodotus (I, 330), that Cyrus treated Astyages well, down to his death. On this point Ctesias agrees with Herodotus.

[550-538 B.C.]

After the taking of Ecbatana, which made Cyrus the Great King, he must have had enough to do to subdue the lands which had belonged to the Median empire. Little reliance can be placed on Ctesias’ account of these struggles. Herodotus (I, 153) states that the Bactrians, who according to Ctesias were soon subdued, were, like the Sacæ, not subjugated until after the conquest of Babylon.

The next war was against the powerful and wealthy king Crœsus of Lydia, who ruled over nearly the whole western half of Asia Minor. It was a continuation of the war between the Medes and Lydians which had been broken off in 585. Here again the story in Herodotus is embellished with many marvellous incidents, and is employed to exemplify moral doctrines.

If Crœsus really began the war, he assuredly did so not frivolously but deliberately, in order to anticipate the inevitable attack. A fierce struggle seems to have taken place in Cappadocia (Herod., I, 76, and especially Polyænus, VII, 8, 1 et seq.), which already belonged to Cyrus. Crœsus retreated to prepare for another campaign, but Cyrus followed hard after him, routed him when he offered battle, and captured his capital Sardis after a short siege. Not only Herodotus, but also apparently his contemporary Xanthus the Lydian, quite independently of Herodotus, told how Cyrus would have burned Crœsus alive. However, Crœsus was pardoned, after all, perhaps because some external circumstance interposed (because a sudden shower prevented the fire from burning?), or because the conqueror changed his mind before it was too late. The pious and believing saw in the event a direct intervention of Apollo on behalf of the man who had honoured the Delphic shrine so highly.

The date of Crœsus’ fall is not quite certain. It may have been 547 or 546. When Cyrus had marched away, the Lydian Pactyas, whom Cyrus had appointed guardian of the treasures, raised a revolt, but it was speedily put down by the king’s generals. From that time forwards the Lydians never made the slightest attempt to shake off the Persian rule.

But now began that struggle of the Persians with the Greeks which has had so much importance for the history of the world. The Lydian kings had subdued a number of Greek cities in Asia Minor; but even these latter shrank from submitting to the still barbarous Persians, whose rule was far more oppressive, inasmuch as they ruthlessly required military service. But Harpagus, and other Persian leaders, quickly took one Greek town after the other; some, like Priene, were razed to the ground. Some of the Ionians, such as the Teians, and most of the Phocæans, avoided slavery by emigrating. Miletus alone, the most flourishing of all these cities, had early come to an understanding with Cyrus, and the latter pledged himself to lay no heavier burden on it than Crœsus had before him. In most of the cities the Persians seem to have set up tyrants, who gave them a better guarantee of obedience than democratic or aristocratic governments. In other respects they left the Greeks alone, just as they left their other subjects alone, not meddling with their internal affairs so long as they paid the necessary contributions, and supplied men and ships for their wars. Most of the other peoples in the west of Asia Minor submitted without much resistance, except the freedom-loving Lycians. Driven into Xanthus, the capital, they perished in a body rather than surrender. Some Carian cities also defended themselves stoutly. This may have given a Persian here and there an inkling, even then, that the little peoples on the western sea were, after all, harder to manage than the nations of slaves in the interior of Asia. Sardis became and remained the mainstay of the Persian rule in western Asia Minor. The governorship was one of the most influential posts in the empire, and the governor seems to have exercised a certain supremacy over some neighbouring governorships.